The NHL and its primary feeder league, the AHL, each have 32 teams. It lines up so that everyone has a dance partner.
But it’s not like that in the 30-team ECHL, the NHL’s secondary farm league.
ECHL affiliations change on a regular basis. This year, the Allen Americans have rejoined the Ottawa Senators organization, leaving the Utah Mammoth as one of the two clubs without an ECHL affiliate.
It seems like an unfortunate circumstance, but the team isn’t worried.
“It’s such a small aspect of the development pipeline for us, in my experience over the years,” said John Ferguson, an assistant GM for the Mammoth whose primary responsibility is to manage the club’s minor-league operations.
“There’s so much greater emphasis at the American Hockey League level.”
Ferguson, who spent five years as the GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the early 2000s, has been around the block a time or two. He’s held nearly every front office and scouting role during his 36-year career, and this is his second time directly overseeing an AHL affiliate.
“(The AHL is) where the (developing) players want to be, and by far and away, that’s where we have the greatest control over their development, over their training, over their coaching, their skills development, on or off the ice,” he said.
He also squashed the notion that the ECHL is a development league for the NHL, instead pointing to the CHL, NCAA and European leagues as the only consistent feeder leagues, aside from the AHL.
Where will the Tucson Roadrunners get their replacement players from?
AHL teams usually rely on their own ECHL affiliates to fill roster spots when injuries strike or players get called up to the NHL. The Tucson Roadrunners won’t have their own pool of talent to draw from, but they will have plenty of substitute options.
Every ECHL player who is not signed to an AHL deal is an AHL free agent, regardless of who their ECHL team is affiliated with. That means the Roadrunners can call someone up from, say, the Utah Grizzlies, even though the Grizzlies are affiliated with the Colorado Avalanche.
In that instance, a player being recalled would typically get an AHL professional tryout contract with the Roadrunners.
While ECHL players certainly care about winning, their primary objective is usually to prove themselves as AHL-caliber talents. ECHL paychecks are just enough to cover life’s bare essentials, but those who make it to the AHL (or European pro leagues) have the opportunity to make very livable salaries.
So, when the call comes to pack your bags for the AHL, it doesn’t really matter what color your new jersey is.
“We don’t anticipate any player supply issues at all,” Ferguson said.
What happens to the ECHL players when NHL affiliations change?
When affiliations change, the AHL team retains the rights to players who are signed to two-way AHL/ECHL contracts, meaning they don’t simply keep playing for the old team under new management.
Ferguson mentioned that the Mammoth have found placements for each of their former Allen Americans so that nobody in the system is overlooked.
